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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I hope you had a good weekend, everybody. Good morning. Today, we'll talk about the growing use of artificial intelligence in search engines and in school. Have you tried Microsoft Bing or Google's new AI functions yet? In education, we'll have a Penn State English professor, who may be one of the few so far, saying AI products like ChatGPT could make education fairer, not just more prone to students not writing their own papers, which is usually what we hear about. We'll hear that argument.

Also today, Tiffany Cabán, city council member from Queens on a really big and growing story in New York City right now. Have you heard that nearly half the 35 members of city council's Progressive Caucus have apparently left the group over the issue of how much to fund the police and to fight Mayor Adams on that? Cabán is a council member staying in the caucus, who wants a fair amount of police funding shifted to other public safety approaches. We'll hear her case and if your council member is in or is out. We'll have a call-in at the end of the show on the three words that exemplify your personal style.

We begin the week with Congressman Adriano Espaillat, Democrat, who represents Upper Manhattan and the Northwest Bronx. He's in his fourth term now and, by way of background, was the first Dominican American and the first formerly undocumented immigrant to ever be elected to Congress. Among other things, we'll get his take on these politically active six days since the State of the Union address on Social Security and other things. Espaillat brought Mayor Eric Adams with him as a guest to the State of the Union. Congressman, always good to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: Thank you, Brian. Thank you for having me. It's pleasure to be here once again.

Brian Lehrer: I guess the first question for everybody on this particular Monday morning of the year is, did you watch the Super Bowl?

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: Oh, yes, I did. Yes, I did. I was rooting for KC and they had a great day. They had a great day, so I had my 26th annual Super Bowl party yesterday, Brian, for 26 straight years.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, very nice. Now, were are you rooting for KC because New York sports fans hate Philadelphia teams [chuckles] or for some other reason?

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: I'm upset at the Empire State Building for trying-- it was going to be lit green and white. What about the Giants?

Brian Lehrer: That's right.

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: I can see the Jets, but they're not in the Super Bowl.

Brian Lehrer: That's why New York sports fans hate Philly because the Giants and the Jets haven't beaten them in a long time, though I did hear that they lit the Empire State Building last night in both teams' colors. How about Rihanna? Are you a Rihanna fan?

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: I'm a big Rihanna fan. You may remember the night that I was part of the group that helped out ASAP Rocky when he was in jail in Sweden, in Stockholm. We worked on getting him released. I'm a big Rihanna fan and I think she had a great show last night.

Brian Lehrer: I saw a stat on Meet the Press yesterday that being a fan of the NFL is one of the few things that unites Americans across party lines right now. I think the stat was 45% of Democrats and 45% of Republicans. Whatever it was, it was like the same, say they're fans of the NFL. If you look at other sports, it breaks down more by party. Isn't that interesting?

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: That's interesting. Maybe we should have a Super Bowl every day of the year.

Brian Lehrer: [laughs] There you go, but then we'll have to talk about concussions and other safety issues in football after that. Well, I think the big national news of the weekend is that the US and Canada keep finding things that could be spy devices flying over our airspace and shooting them down. Have you been briefed as a member of Congress and how clear is it to you what all these things are?

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: Well, we still have not deciphered the latest findings because we're back here. We're back in our districts. We left Washington. There was a concerted effort now to be watchful for them and perhaps that is why more of them are being found. We have not yet gotten any final report as to the nature of these balloons. Certainly, the first one seemed to be China-driven, but the other ones, we still don't have verifiable information as to where they came from and what their intention was.

Brian Lehrer: Not space aliens, though, right? Twitter has some pretty--

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: Not space aliens. None of that, but who knows, Brian? [chuckles]

Brian Lehrer: Oh, you're leaving the door open. [chuckles] Social media has some pretty wacky stuff along those lines. Why do you think, if you have an opinion on this, that China or whoever it is could have gotten away for so long with sending these devices, because, presumably, it didn't just start a few weeks ago, without being detected?

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: Look, I think that if you saw the balloon, you could have perhaps considered it to be a weather balloon that went off course. It didn't look like a spy machine if you may. We all know that China and Russia and us were always checking and were always doing reconnaissance on our intelligence work across the planet. This is not a surprise to me. I think it's a whole lot of nothing. I think that this probably goes on every day. We haven't paid attention to it because we really have not been publicly focused on it as we have been in the last couple of weeks.

Brian Lehrer: Do you think that the Biden administration is being transparent enough, even with members of Congress, about what this has been about because even some Democrats in Congress are complaining about that?

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: Well, we should have gotten more information about it. Now, Canada is involved in the latest incident, so we'll have to wait and see what they come up with as well. Yes, we should have gotten more information in a quicker fashion. I think the administration was a little bit slow to get to it.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take your phone calls on, let's say, anything national politics that's relevant to Congressman Adriano Espaillat, who represents Upper Manhattan and the Northwest Bronx. It can be district-related. It can just be national politics-related. You can celebrate Rihanna for being the first pregnant person to sing at a Super Bowl Halftime Show or whatever, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer.

Congressman, did President Biden win the argument about Social Security? Even Mitch McConnell the other day called it a bad idea by his Republican colleague, Senator Rick Scott of Florida, to propose sunsetting Social Security and Medicare every five years and deciding whether to reauthorize or change it every time. Do you see that as a dead issue for the 2024 election cycle now?

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: We got to always be watchful of the Republicans on Social Security, Medicare. They're always looking to slash it, if not, push it back dramatically. I think that President Biden was great in the State of the Union. He held them accountable. He says, "Look, if you say you're not going to slash it, then we got to believe that you're not. Let's wait and see." I thought he was masterful. I thought he had a great night the other day. I don't know about you, Brian, but I thought the President had a great night.

He was forceful. I think maybe they were waiting for a president that was going to be kind of quiet and meek. He came out of there pretty strong. I was really impressed. You should look at their faces, Brian. They were taken aback. They were traumatized, I think. They were caught off-guard. He came out really strong. He spoke to the American people, spoke about the issues that are relevant to the American people, and called them out for the things that they're doing on a regular basis that are really irrelevant and could hurt a lot of families.

Brian Lehrer: While it's never popular in any given election cycle to talk about any changes to Medicare or Social Security, not just sunsetting them and debating their existence every five years, it is true, isn't it, that at current rates of revenue and outlay, Social Security and Medicare will run out of money in a number of years? I think it's in the 2030s. You have to address that with some kinds of changes on both sides of the aisle, don't you?

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: I think that Social Security has to be addressed long-term, yes, but certainly not by sunsetting it. We must take a look at innovative formulas to strengthen it, not weaken it, and our future seniors are counting on us. I think that this is so important for folks across America that we should play around with it. To haphazardly come up with a plan that sunset it or weaken it, I think, puts in jeopardy the future of working Americans right now.

Brian Lehrer: Do you or does the Democratic Caucus generally have any formula tweaks in mind to preserve it?

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: Look, we have to certainly increase our revenue. We have to, I believe, look at expanding the possibility of taxing the very rich. That's something that gets talked about whether it is for increasing, let's say, for example, education aid or for the healthcare system in general, the cost of health care. We certainly have to increase and strengthen our ability to capture additional resources so that then we can make some real plans regarding the long-term strength of Social Security. I think that's important.

Brian Lehrer: All right. We talked a little bit about that on the show last week, exactly the idea that you brought up. A lot of people may not know that the dedicated Social Security and Medicare payroll tax that people pay, it sunsets once you make something like $180,000. I don't know the exact number off the top of my head, but it's something in the high $100,000 per year. Above that, the people who are making really high incomes aren't paying Social Security taxes on those highest dollars. That's where the Democrats at least lean to close that revenue gap. Oh, by the way, here's a controversy. Listener writes on Twitter, "Rihanna did have an impressive performance, but the dancing Teletubbies," so that was--

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: Look, she's certainly not scared of heights. That's for sure. I'll take her with that. I think it's a great way for her, so touchdown for her.

Brian Lehrer: That was something. I was afraid for her being up there on that platform all the way up. It was a pretty little platform, but that listener didn't like the choreography. All right. Joel in the Bronx, you're on WNYC with Congressman Adriano Espaillat. Hi, Joel.

Joel: Brian, thanks for taking my phone call. I'm one of the congressperson's voters. I just want to ask the congressperson a question. What is the plan of the Democratic Party to take over five seats? Three definitely in Long Island. One border to Bronx, which is Orange County and Parkman County. All these people, they want plus and minus 1%. I do not understand why Democratic Party does not put enough money in these places.

These people are taking advantage of the farmers in New York that they vote Republican. If they put it together, Republican, they don't do anything for New York. We have five guaranteed seats, meaning 2024, Democratic people will be back in Congress in power. That's what I'm asking and I appreciate it. I let it go. Hopefully, the congressperson will respond to my request. I'm his voter and I hope he wins again.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much.

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: Thank you. Well, thank you. Listen, you're right. We're not very proud of what happened in New York. Certainly, at least one of those seats, the Santos seat seems to be reachable. I don't think that--

Brian Lehrer: The George Santos seat. I apologize to everybody that the line to the Congressman doesn't seem great right now, but yes, George Santos is a Republican who won, where Democrat Tom Suozzi used to represent until he decided not to run for reelection. Maybe that's one that's ripe for a battle again in 2024, but the larger trend seemed to be that Democrats lost the House majority largely because the New York suburbs didn't trust the Democrats on crime. Is that a fair read?

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: Yes, I think that's a fair read, Brian. I think that the gubernatorial race got in the middle of the congressional races and, of course, the fearmongering that went on there with Zeldin showing up every day at a subway stop where something occurred the night before. The fearmongering that went on there, I believe, impacted dramatically at those seats, the results of those elections. Luckily, we were able to pull the gubernatorial race, but we lost those seats. That hurt us nationally.

We got to regrade them. I know that the DCCC will be focusing on those seats and we'll be coming. I would like to see if my good friend, Tom Suozzi, take another shot at it and come back. Certainly, I think that the Sean Patrick Maloney seat, it's also winnable and the Kathleen Rice seat is also winnable. Right there, you have three potential seats. Remember, this is all going to occur in a presidential year.

There will be heightened awareness in New York State about what's happening in Washington, the reelection or not of President Biden, and, of course, the course that we will be taking as a nation. I think we're in a good position to retake them. We have to invest. I agree that we should be speaking to farmers and meet them where they are and not shy away from having a conversation with folks who may not fit the profile of traditional Democrats. I think we ought to go out there and speak to everybody. Leave no stone unturned.

Brian Lehrer: Later in the show, I mentioned in the intro, we'll have City Council Member Tiffany Cabán on this fracturing of the Progressive Caucus in New York City Council. 15 of the 35 members have left, is the number that I've read, over defunding the police proposals' different visions of public safety. Whether shifting some money out of the NYPD and better funding homeless services and mental health services and other things would actually provide more public safety rather than less. It's a big fracture even within Democrats in New York City, even within Democrats in the Progressive Caucus in New York City apparently. Are you on a side of that?

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: I believe that we could have both, Brian. I think it's a serious mistake to make it a zero-sum game where an automatic win for one is an automatic loss for the other. When I walked the streets of Washington Heights in Harlem, they tell me they want foot patrol officers. They like the program that David Dinkins put in place, community policing. We want that. We want safety. When there's a burglary or an armed robbery, we call the police.

There shouldn't be a reason why we shouldn't have, for example, mental health services. We need them in our neighborhoods. The patients are out there walking our neighborhoods in our subway stops. There's no reason why a win for one side has to be an automatic loss for the other. I think to approach it that way and to say, "If you don't take this position, you got to be out," it's a mistake. That's a mistake. The Democratic Party is a big tent party. We have our internal fights and then we walk out of there together. That's what makes us strong.

Brian Lehrer: I think the Progressive Caucus, those who remain, I think we'll hear this from Council Member Cabán later, would probably say maybe in an ideal world. She probably wouldn't even want to do what you said and keep funding police at current levels and fund everything else also as maximally as you can. Even in the context, just in the context of the real world, with the city facing likely revenue shortfalls compared to recent years, it's a question of, "What do you cut or what do you cut more?" Their position is, well, they're going to make more cuts to mental health, to homeless services, to education than they're making to the police, and that's the wrong way to go. Opinion?

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: Well, we'll see what the mayor's budget proposal is, but certainly, public safety seems to be a priority for New Yorkers. If you have a doorman or if you have some private security in your building, in your neighborhood, maybe it's not like that for you. The folks that I represent, they want some level of protection. Believe me. In the Bronx, part of my district, unfortunately, it's been hit by too many incidents of violence and shootings and homicides. They want protection.

Working-class New Yorkers want to be protected when they take the subway. I couldn't highlight that more. That doesn't mean that you don't fund mental health services, substance abuse services. I think, in many ways, they're both joined at the hip. They should be a priority for the administration. I think they are a priority for the administration. To say that if you don't categorically reject funding the community policing programs that you're out of an entity, I think, is a mistake. I think it weakens our party.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, listener tweets, "Can't believe you just repeated the cable news myth that New York races were about crime. It was failure to turn out Democrats that lost us those seats." Your reaction?

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: That as well, but maybe people didn't come out because they felt that this issue was dominating the airwaves. We need to do a better job at getting our base out. No question about it. We need to do a better job at speaking to the diverse sectors of our base. We don't often do that and we make mistakes when we do that.

When we speak to a Dominican and we feel we should speak to a Dominican the same way we speak to a Puertorican or a Colombian or an Ecuadorian, they have their own nuances. We should meet them where they are and speak to them in ways that they understand and that are relevant to their everyday lives. We're not monolithic. We're not a monolithic city. We have a lot of differences, but we all come together around issues. I think we have failed to do that as a party, yes.

Brian Lehrer: Speaking of talking to people across different kinds of lines, you're a congressman from Manhattan in the Bronx and our next caller is Gary in Queens. You're on WNYC with Congressman Espaillat.

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: I did graduate from Queens College, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, you did. I didn't know that. Hi, Gary, you're on WNYC with Congressman.

Gary: Hi. Good morning, Congressman, and good morning, Brian. I'm a big fan of your show. If I may, I'd like to get back to the part of the conversation where you started where you're talking about the balloons. The first balloon was hit by a missile and exploded. I really wonder why the US couldn't just put a couple of bullet holes in these balloons because then the gas would seep out.

The balloon would descend much more slowly and presumably make a much softer landing so that it would be easier to recover the balloon and its package intact instead of having debris spread over an area of miles. It would be much easier. Obviously, the more intact the balloon and the package are, the easier it would be to figure out what's going on with it. That's my comment and thank you for letting me call.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Call again. Congressman, any thought on that?

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: Well, I'm not a military expert, Brian, so I won't tell you how they approached it. Was it the wrong or the right way? I know that there seems to be a concern about capturing the information that is in there and whether the balloon itself may have a self-destroy mechanism or whether seawater could impact our ability to retrieve some of the information that we want to get our hands on. I suppose that how we approach it is relevant, but I am not a military expert. I can't really speak on that.

Brian Lehrer: Susie in Manhattan in your district in North Harlem, you're on WNYC. Hi, Susie.

Susie: Hi, so my name is Susie. I'm an activist. I work with Tanesha Grant and her organization, Parents Supporting Parents NY. We do a lot of work in Harlem and North Harlem. What we have experienced and what we've seen is a lot of anti-Black racism in the area, especially in North Harlem, Washington Heights area. It's Black racism mostly coming from Dominican New Yorkers who live in your district. What can you do to help address this racism?

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: Well, racism is alive and race matters. I guess it's alive in every community. It's certainly alive in Staten Island when a Black man was strangled by a police officer to death while yelling, "I can't breath," 11 times. The Puerto Rican guy that filmed the whole thing got indicted. The police officer got exonerated. The DA that failed to prosecute the police officer got a promotion to Congress. It's alive everywhere, but the Dominican community is a Black community. The Dominican Republic is a Black nation.

Susie: Most Dominicans don't identify themselves as Black. They identify themselves as Dominicans.

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: I do and I believe most Dominicans do identify themselves as Black. I think there's been a misrepresentation of that. In fact, I applied to be a member of the Black Caucus. Until now, I've been rejected. My blackness has been put in question, although I assert that I'm a Black man.

Brian Lehrer: Susie, do you want to say anything in more detail about how you see this being expressed and what you think could be done about it?

Susie: Sure. What I know is that North Harlem used to be Black, very Black. It became Dominican and it changed and things changed. A lot of Black people don't feel safe. I think if Black community-based organizations were more included by their representatives, but the representatives of Washington Heights in North Harlem, the leader of my organization, Tanesha Grant, lives in North Harlem. I think you might know her. I think including these community-based organizations in the work that you do could only be helpful.

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: Well, I'll invite you to join our Black History event, which will be on Wednesday at The Forum on 125th Street on Broadway. My funding of organizations as I explained in my state of the district is equitable amongst Harlem, East Harlem, Northern Manhattan, and the Northwest Bronx. I look at a balance of funding and programs for every community. I strive every day to ensure that not one community, including the Dominican community, feels that they have an advantage over the other.

That's a task that I take on every single day. You could look at the funding that I bring into the district whether it is the Second Avenue Subway, which will connect Harlem and East Harlem to the rest of the world, or the Charles B. Rangel transportation infrastructure institute as a city college or the funding that I got for the Urban League or for the Abyssinian Baptist Church or the Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce. You will see that the funding that I'm bringing in is spread out equitably with no one having an advantage over the other.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Susie, I think you heard an invitation there to contact the Congressman's office, so feel free and say you spoke to him on the show. To end that part of the conversation on maybe a lighter note, I don't know if you know, Congressman, we're doing a Black History Month series on this show about Afro-Latinos in particular every Wednesday during February.

This Wednesday's segment is going to be about Afro-Latino icons like a lot of people can more easily name "Black icons," Martin Luther King, or people in entertainment or whatever than Afro-Latino icons. Not to put you on the spot, but is there anybody who comes right to mind whether it be in politics, activism, entertainment, anything?

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: There are three, Brian. Of course, Arturo Schomburg. The Schomburg Center of Research, a museum on 135th Street, is named after a Puerto Rican of African descent who did tremendous research for the African diaspora in Harlem. Carlos Cooks, a Dominican who was the guy that led the Pan-African movement from Marcus Garvey to Malcolm X. Not many people know about him, but he was a tremendous leader of that movement. Of course, I am working on retiring permanently. Number 21 of the great, late Roberto Clemente was also an Afro-Puerto Rican and a pioneer of Latino ball players in the Major League and the first one to be inducted posthumously into the Hall of Fame.

Brian Lehrer: Good one. Good list. Obviously, not a hard question for you to come up with multiple Afro-Latino icons. Listeners, if this sparks some thoughts in you about who you would put on a list of Afro-Latino Hall of Fame candidates, not just in baseball, we're going to do that segment Wednesday at around eleven o'clock. One more call. Back to Social Security, I think, from Darrell in the Bronx. Darrell, you're on WNYC with Congressman Espaillat. Hi there.

Darrell: Yes, good morning. Do you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: I hear you.

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: Yes, I do.

Darrell: Yes, so how are you doing, Councilman? I remember when you first ran-

Brian Lehrer: Congressman.

Darrell: -twice and you did win here in the Bronx, but the question is not about you. I'm a baby boomer, right? Being a baby boomer, I'm trying to understand. I've been contributing to Social Security since I was 14. How could they be saying that Social Security won't be solvent in 2035? That's one question. The second question is, we just came over all these depths of COVID Americans in this country who are taxpayers. Where did all that money go to? Because they didn't go to their families or their children, meaning the children in the family? Can you answer those questions?

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: Well, let me just go from the last one first. I don't know where you live in the Bronx, part of my district, but I know for a fact that the Bronx ZIP codes were the hardest hit in the district with the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, we put our first testing site over by Lehman College, right across the street from Lehman College in a big parking lot there, where I took my road test back in the 1920s. A lot of folks were hurt by COVID-19 in the Bronx. The economy also was shaken by COVID-19.

If you're referring to the funding from federal programs that were implemented during the pandemic such as the PPP program, for example, also the Child Tax Credit program or the assistance for renters, that went to families obviously. If you fell back on your rent and you were three months behind, we gave money to the state to assist you in paying your rent. In many cases, that went directly to the landlord to get you up to date so you wouldn't face an eviction notice. If you had a child under 5, you got a $3,500 childcare tax credit for every child. I believe it was $3,000 for anybody from 5 to 17 years old.

Brian Lehrer: You are saying in some that the supports that the federal government spent money on during COVID did go to a lot of individuals and families and don't counterpose that with having Social Security and Medicare be solvent, yes?

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: First of all, Brian, we were in the middle of the crisis of our lifetime. You and I and nobody that's around have been through something as serious as this pandemic that killed way over a million people. We were in uncharted waters. We did have to assist the American people, and that we did. The Republicans argue that because of our spending, because of our help to the American people that we, in essence, trigger inflation.

In fact, there's a lot of factors that trigger inflation. We see inflation coming down now bit by bit. I think we're heading in the right direction from that arena. If you're saying that because of the help that we brought in, we put in jeopardy Social Security in the future, I say no. I say the issue of Social Security and its future was there before the pandemic. We need to address it by securing greater revenue. That, in my opinion, implies making sure that very rich people pay up more.

Brian Lehrer: Darrell, is that responsive to your question?

Darrell: Somewhat. I don't want to take up the time on it because I know it's deep. It's really deep because, at the end of the day, like I said, I'm born in 1958, so I'll give you that. A lot of people probably going to call and say they know who I am, but saying all that, the point here is they say I am at that age already, so you're saying to me 1935 is-- Excuse me. 2035 ain't too far ahead.

What are you saying to us folks who are getting ready to retire, already retired at those ages? What are you going to do? Retirement is retirement, so how can you say, "Oh, we ain't going to have-- we're depending on--" even though we may get pensions and case plans from other places, right? That means we have to go back into the workforce and get another job because Social Security's not going to be solvent.

[crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Great call, Darrell, '58. Now, everybody knows who he is. [chuckles] Call us again. I do hear, including from the Republicans, that people who are already in retirement or have hit a certain retirement age shouldn't have to worry because they save for retirement based on the presumption that Social Security as it has existed with the formulas that have existed would be there. Almost all the formula change proposals coming from any camp are not for people older than Darrell or Darrell's age or older. Is that your understanding or is that too generous to the Republicans, Congressman?

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: The Republicans themselves have said as they did during the State of the Union that they're not going to touch Social Security. I believe that we're going to keep this solvent. I believe that it is upon us to look at ways to strengthen it so that people like Darrell won't feel afraid that when that day comes that they don't have that benefit available. As you said, Brian, even the Republicans are saying, "You paid into it." It's not in jeopardy right now. In fact, they went further and they said at the State of the Union, "We're not going to assault it." We'll take their word for it now, although it's hard to take their word sometimes.

Brian Lehrer: We're almost out of time. One more issue, which we're going to have to treat briefly, but it's a big serious issue. I see you took Mayor Adams as you guessed to the State of the Union address. The mayor, as you know, is looking for a lot more federal funding to help with the influx of more than 40,000 migrants seeking political asylum in the last year or so. You as the first formerly undocumented member of Congress, I'm sure, are very sympathetic to their plight, but Adams says, "Look, this is going to cost the city $2 billion unless we get help from the federal government for what is a federal issue." I assume you agree with him. Can you leverage that?

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: Well, we did fight for $800 million to be put in the omnibus bill for the migrants, to help the migrants for shelter and food. It's going to cost more, so we're going to have to go back and get more funding, but some of that funding, Brian, also falls in different buckets. For example, the education funding falls on a different bucket. It follows the child. It's that part of that traditional funding stream that will go towards food and shelter.

Also, there's other pieces that are in different buckets. The city has to do its job to apply for reimbursement for each one of those buckets. We did include $800 million nationally. The city's going to now have to go and apply for their reimbursement. We got to go back to the well and get more. I agree. This has a cost to it. We should come up with the money to provide the kind of infrastructure and safety net that has been available for immigrants all across our history for these new migrants.

I may add, Brian, that the new plan that's been put in place by the administration somewhat alters the traditional asylum model. Because what it says basically is if you come from these four countries, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Cuba, and you have a sponsor in the United States and you have a passport or an official document, which many of these asylum seekers don't have, and they may not have the privilege of having a sponsor in the United States and if you apply for asylum in another country before you apply to the United States, then you're eligible.

It alters the traditional asylum model, which is the government is authoritarian. They want to kill me. They want to put me in prison. I'm going to seek asylum in the United States. I may not have a sponsor in the United States. I certainly don't have a passport because I wouldn't go to the government that wants to put me in jail and get one. We must always continue to have a track for these folks that are seeking safety because of who they are.

Brian Lehrer: You're saying the Biden administration's new rules are too restrictive and are going to leave people who would deserve political asylum in jeopardy in their countries. That's what you're saying, right?

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: I'm saying they're privileged to have a sponsor here, to have a document like a passport, and to be able to access an app to apply for asylum in another country like Mexico is almost a privilege. Someone that's running from violence or from death, from an authoritarian government.

Brian Lehrer: Congressman Adriano Espaillat, who represents most of Upper Manhattan and the Northwest Bronx, we appreciate you coming on as always. Thanks a lot.

Congressman Adriano Espaillat: Thank you, Brian. Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed it.

 

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